Quoted from RobT:You've had high end restorations, including one from Chris Hutchins, and you would still refer to this Congo as a "high end restoration"?
This all makes sense! Nothing wrong at all with tradeoffs that you admit that were made due to it not being an "A list" title. But I think it is perfectly reasonable to point out that those "tradeoffs" are what prevent this from being a "high end restoration". And I think it is more than just semantics. I think it is an important distinction.
Hey Rob,
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
We are going to have to agree to disagree. No matter what you call it (HUO, High-end, Custom, whatever), pictures and the name of the restorer are more important (which I provided).
From my perspective, the definition of a high-end restoration for an A-list title is different than for non A-list titles. Again, this is my opinion. For example, I have a Fish Tales that had an awesome PF and had a crappy cabinet. I had the cabinet restored by a great local guy and married it with the awesome PF (untouched). I consider it a high-end FT. With the new decals and cabinet restoration, I probably have $2,800 in the pin (paid $1,400 and invested $1,400 in the restoration). It plays awesome, looks great, but the underside of the PF hasn't been restored, so it doesn't look like a typical A-list restoration (by HEP, for example). I would argue that paying HEP/Keller/Kelley/etc. to make my FT perfect wouldn't be a wise use of money. Nevertheless, it's arguably much, much nicer than 99% of the FT's in existence (since most people are reluctant to invest in this title). I claim the same is true for my Congo. In fact, the custom cabinet/clear is just awesome. Is the back of the pin that nobody sees as beautiful as the rest of the pin? No. But I don't care about this.
Here's another example...is it a requirement for a "high end" restoration to have an elaborate clear coat job? Hope not, because I personally think some titles play like crap with many layers of clear. In fact the Keller MM didn't have extra clear coat (other than the clear that included with the repro PF). Like me, Chad happens to prefer restoring/playing pins that are closer to their original form (which didn't include 4-6 layers of ceramic clear).
To me high-end, simply means on the high-end of the quality spectrum. If the pin is in the top 5% of the spectrum, I see no problem calling it high-end.
Oh yeah...one other fairly important point. I've had nearly aesthetically perfect pinballs that played like crap. From my perspective, the quality of the play should be factored into a pinballs "rating" (but it typically isn't, because it's so hard to qualify). In fact, I just finished restoring a STTNG that was 8 aesthetically but a 10 in terms of playability. Now it's a 9+ (http://s1205.beta.photobucket.com/user/snaroff/library/STTNG%20restoration) It too, doesn't have a fancy clear coat...the natural PF plays beautifully...no reason to mess with it.
Food for thought...